Culture and Conquest in Latin America
Essential Questions:
What effects did the Spanish have upon native Andean culture?
What effects did Andean culture have upon the Spanish?
Outcomes:
Students will understand that conquest and colonialism transforms both the colonizers and the
colonized.
Intro Activity/Anticipatory Set:
Scene from T.V. documentary version of “Guns, Germs, and Steel.”
- This scene creates the idea that Europeans came in and obliterated the native Andean civilizations.
In terms of the Spanish conquests in the Andes region, this was not the case at all. It was a much more
complex interaction.
Instructional Input:
Teacher lecture based upon Rachel’s presentation.
Guided Practice: Image Analysis
Students analyze the Guaman Poma images in their selected groups.
They explain their image to the rest of the class, and how it helps to answer the essential questions.
In their groups they discuss the reliability of the sources and what the order of the sources might be.
They also attempt to put the images in their correct order and think about the change over time in
Andean society under Spanish rule.
Independent Practice: Sensory Figure
Students create either a Spanish or Native Andean sensory figure living during and after the conquests.
This figure incorporates the study of changing food habits plus any of the other elements labeled below:
Religious beliefs
Art and Music
Fashion and Clothing
Travel
Health
Work
Social Status
Extension Activity:
Students adopt the role of their sensory figure and meet with students that have the same sensory
figure (Spanish colonist/Indigenous Andean). They then brainstorm in pairs, sharing the information on
their sensory figures:
How has the other culture changed me?
How have I changed the other culture?
Students then meet with a member of the other group, and use their research to interview each other:
How have I changed your culture?
How have you changed my culture?
Teacher then leads a class discussion about the impact of Spanish colonization in the Andean Region.
Was it all about one civilization destroying and replacing the other?
What happened instead?